Back in its GM days, Lotus produced this FWD Elan and all US cars came with an Isuzu I4 turbo. By most accounts, this is the best-handling front wheel drive car ever made. Most say it’s incredibly fun, as weight is minimal and the turbo four moves it with authority. 0-60 MPH times were in line with Pony cars of the day.
$20K is generally greedy for one of these, but this is a 6,500-mile example and should indicate the top of the market. Whether it gets a bid or not remains to be seen, as these tend to trade in the teens and, while not many were produced, it’s not unusual to find a few low mileage examples for sale at any given time.
Toward the end of its pre-Hyundai days, Kia bought the tooling for this car from Lotus and briefly produced a Kia Elan for the Korean market (and maybe a few others?). THAT would be a truly rare find, but would not come with the turbo four.
Click for eBay ad
Huntington Station, NY, USA
$20,000 with ZERO bids and $24K BIN
07/15/2013 update: Ended with ZERO bids, which isn’t too surprising. This is obviously a dealer doing the “eBay ad as advertising” concept, and it turns out it’s still for sale via their website.
Some hate the idea of a FWD Lotus. Love it or hate it, it’s a good looking car and made a cool little brother to the Esprit.
Interior borrowed more parts from Isuzu, but came together well, overall.
There it is…
Ad text:
1991 LOTUS ELAN SE M100 TURBO
**This Lotus is available for inspection at our Water
Mill (Hamptons) Showroom, located at 938 Montauk Highway, Water Mill, NY 11976, Tel: (631) 726-0770
–Red with Black leather interior, Black Carpeting and Black convertible top, 6,000 ORIGINAL – 1-OWNER MILES, 5-speed manual gearbox.
In 1986 the purchase of Lotus by General Motors provided the financial backing to develop a new, small, affordable car in the same spirit as the original Elan (last built in December 1972).
The M100 Elan was conceived as a mass-market car and in particular one that would appeal to US buyers. The choice of front wheel drive is unusual for a sports car, but according to Lotus sales literature, “for a given vehicle weight, power and tire size, a front wheel drive car was always faster over a given section of road”. There were definite advantages in traction and controllability.
The M100 Elan’s cornering performance was undeniable (the Elan was described by Autocar magazine as “the quickest point to point car available”). The Elan’s rigid chassis minimised roll through the corners and has led to its description as “the finest front wheel drive car bar none”.
The M100 Elan used a 1,588 cc (DOHC) 16-valve engine, sourced from the Isuzu and extensively modified (a new exhaust system, re-routed intake plumbing and major modifications to the ECU to improve torque and boost response. Almost all models featured an IHI turbo) by Lotus which produced 162 horsepower. 0–60 acceleration time was measured by Autocar and Motor magazine at 6.5 seconds, and a top speed of 137 mph (220 km/h) was recorded.
Altogether 3,855 Elans were built between November 1989 and July 1992, 559 of them were sold in the US.
This Elan SE M100 Turbo was purchased new by the consignee. It has been collector owned and cared from from new and for the last 22 years. It has only 6,000 original miles from new, it has been garage kepted and has never seen rain or inclement weather. It is in exceptional, almost new original condition, surely a time warp example of what is a collectible Lotus sports car. It is complete with original, books, manuals, keys, service records, factory tools and jack. A very limited production convertible sports car and surely something you will not run into often.